#SABC board member Mathatha Tsedu resigns

Johannesburg - Mathatha Tsedu is the latest board member to resign from the SABC board.

It is being reported that Tsedu has become the fourth member to resign following the resignation of three other board members.

Khanyisile Kweyama, John Mattison and Krish Naidoo reportedly resigned earlier in the week. Naidoo confirmed his resignation to SABC radio on Thursday.

The contents of some of the resignation letters were revealed earlier this week. Eyewitness News reported that Mattison had cited the board's decision to go ahead with retrenchments and his inability to convince his colleagues not to go ahead with the contentious decision as the reason for his departure.

While Naidoo had cited the boards deteriorating relationship with the new minister of communications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams as the reason for his resignation.

The developments at the SABC have become a growing concern for civil society organisations who are concerned that with three members resigning from the board, it would not be able to meet a quorum and in turn would not be able to make decisions.

EFF said on Thursday said that it had written to President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene on the ongoing crisis at the SABC and the exodus of board members.

The party believes the resignations were being driven by a lack of government support.

“The EFF wrote a letter to Ramaphosa calling on his intervention. To this day, he has yet to respond, and SABC is going under. Majority of the board members will resign because there is no support from the government in terms of the guarantee. They have literally been set up to fail,” said the party in a statement on Thursday.

The EFF like the DA believes the ANC has interfered in the SABC and motivated for the resignations.

“The EFF believes that many in the ANC want the collapse of the SABC, to institute a new board that they can control towards 2019 Elections. How can a minister demand SABC to rethink its retrenchment plan, when she is not giving them any guarantee? It is a clear strategy to have SABC fail, so as to impose an interim board that they can control,” said the party.

This latest resignation means the board is no longer inquorate and will only have 30 days to make decisions and thereafter they will longer be able to do so.